Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Hello, long time no post. My training has been going very well and my IT band has been getting stretchier and stretchier, lol. I have been stretching it a lot and the pain has been slowly subsiding. This week I went for my 8 mile run and was able to do it, although at a very slow pace. I am going on a 3 day packpacking trip starting today with my two dogs, including ex-guide dog Shep, and my brother. It is sure to be a lot of fun and I wish all of you a Merry Christmas. Don't forget to donate!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

So, this morning I went out and got a ride with Mary Frances, who is a friend on our Team in Training team and I ran the 5k race along with the rest of our team. I got a spiffy new shirt and I finished in 29 minutes, with a 9:30 pace. Not half bad. Yesterday and this morning my IT band was hurting so I was really nervous about having to run 3 miles through pain. However, I had been intensely stretching all week and i guess it paid off. It hurt throughout the entire race, but only very mildly and not enough to affect my speed or anything like that, so this is definately a sucess. Now both my knees are pretty sore and they hurt a bit, but I think by tomorrow they should be healed up, so that is really exciting for me.

Friday, December 11, 2009

So, I have been doing ok, I am able to run for about 10 minutes before I can feel my IT band and then at 20 minutes it starts to hurt, with a sharp pain. However, good news is that my recovery time has shortened. On Saturday I went to practice and ran for about 2 miles before I had to stop and walk the other 3 miles. My knees hurt pretty badly after that and walking was painful. I stretched a lot throughout the day and used the foam roller and by night time, i could walk pretty much pain free again. This is a vast improvement from the first time when I actually injured my IT band and i couldn't walk for a week.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

So it turns out that all along i just had IT band syndrome, which is pretty painful, but now that i know what is actually wrong with my body, I know how to treat it. I have been stretching about 3 times a day, and using the painful foam roller to break up tissue in my leg and that has helped immensely. After Saturday's 6 mile run i could barely move my legs without experiencing pain, and already, just on tuesday, i feel like i could probably run a few minutes without any pain. I will run on the treadmill tomorrow morning to see where i am in healing. I really hope i can heal by Saturday because our team in running in the Santa Monica 5k race, and i really want to be able to complete it with as little pain as possible.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Come out to Comedy Union to see comedians that you've seen on Comedy Central, HBO' Def Comedy Jam and The Tonight Show LIVE!!! If you send an email to gordonm@oxyconnect.oxy.edu telling me you are going, you can get in FREE!!! There is a suggested donation of $15, with all proceeds going toward funding research to rind new treatments and cures for blood cancers like leukemia. But feel free to donate more or less, or just come for free and have a great time!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

So, sorry for the short break between posts, but I have been quite busy trying to get ready for finals which are in two weeks. I still have a lot of studying to do, and I didn't get much done during the Thanksgiving break because i was having a such good time being home and enjoying time with my family. To update you all on how I am doing, my knees feel a lot better when i walk, but if i run at all, they hurt a little and then are immensely sore afterwards. So for the past week I have stuck to the elliptical trainer. I will ask my coach on Team In Training about what to do for my knees, but I am not too worried about it. I would like to give a shoutout and thanks to http://pinoymedicaldoctor.blogspot.com/2009/11/lets-help-leukemia-lymphoma-society-lls.html for so kindly putting up a post about my blog. Check it out, its a great blog!

Also, if anyone has any good fundraising ideas, please leave a comment letting me know. Thanks!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Over the past few days I have tried to rest up my legs and already they feel much better. I have been doing lots of excersice on the bike and when I get back to school from thanksgiving break, then I will start running again. On Wednesday I registered with Team In Training, which is the group of marathoners who are running for and with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I have a fundraising goal of $2,400 that I must reach to participate in the race, and so far, all i have raised is 70 dollars. On wednesday I went to the cross-training meeting that the TNT group had at arcadia high school. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get there taking the bus, but luckily, Megan, one of the mentors, was nice enough to drive me back to campus. There were a lot of people at the cross-training and everyone was super friendly. I met my coach and a bunch of other first time marathoners. This Saturday, at 7 am we had a team practice at Hahamunga park. I walked while other ran, but there were several other people who were walking too. It was good company, and I had a long chat with the coach as we discussed Leukemia and he told me how he lost his dad to non-hodgkins lymphoma. Afterwards there was a potluck and we all brainstormed fundraising ideas that we could do as a group. I had a lot of fun at the practice and everyone is just so nice. I got my Team In Training jersey and water bottle, so i will make sure to wear the jersey so people can ask me about it and I can try and raise more money that way.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

So, I thought I had hurt my knees, but it turns out that I just pulled both my hamstrings (which connect at the knee). This is good news because that is something that I can easily heal, and after lots of stretching and icing, I already feel much better. On sunday, I tried doing elliptical, but it was way too painful, so I did the stationary bike for 2 hours. I used the smaller gym in one of the dorms that is close to the one I live in and it was really nice. It is a cozy little gym with only a few machines and two huge flat screens. I enjoyed 2 episodes of law and order and got in a great workout. Yesterday I rested and today I will go back to the gym and do more biking. Hopefully I will be able to run again by Thursday, but I am going to error on the side of caution, because it is very important that I remain healthy and that my body is able to function to the best of its ability.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Today I woke up and as soon as I got out of bed onto my feet, my knees were in pain. I'm not sure why, but all day I have been in moderate pain due to my knees, which hurt when I walk, stand, or move them at all. I went down to the training room and iced them throughout the day. I also took lots of advil which has seemed to help slightly. Because I want to make sure that my body stays functioning, instead of running 8 miles tomorrow on the track, I will do 15 miles on the elliptical trainer, or however much is a challenge for me, we'll see. I plan on buying some really good running shoes either tomorrow or monday, so that when my knees feel better I can go back out on the track.

Friday, November 13, 2009

This morning I woke up at 7 am and walked down to the marketplace (what we call the cafeteria) to eat breakfast. When I got there I saw that it didn't open until 7:30 am, so I waited around for 15 minutes and then went inside to eat. I had a blueberry scone and a bowl of oatmeal because I know that you are supposed to have carbohydrates about an hour before you run. I usually do not eat very much food throughout the day, so I made a point of finishing the entire bowl even though I was full about half way through. Then I went down to the track to stretch before I began running. As I was stretching and listening to my MP3 player, the music all of a sudden stopped and refused to start again. I tried turning it off, but the whole thing had frozen up, and I immediately started to panic. I thing that is for sure is that I hate running. I am not running a marathon for fun, like some people, or to push my physical limits, like others. No, I am running to raise money for leukemia research and to get me through running I need my music. However, I knew that if it was going to be easy in the first place, i wouldn't be doing it. So I was determined to complete the entire 5 mile run, without any music.

Today I opted to wear my basketball shoes, hoping they wouldn't give me as bad blisters, and luckily, I was right. My feet felt fine throughout the run, although my left knee started to hurt moderately as I began my 2nd mile around the track. As I began running, still very sore from Wednesday, the first lap felt pretty good, and so did the second. But as I started my 3rd lap and all the way through the 2nd mile, I had a bad cramp in my side and my right shoulder ached. Nonetheless I pushed forward and miles 3 and 4 were pretty easy. Physically, I felt pretty good, and I wasn't worried about my body not being able to make it. The last mile was pretty difficult because my knee was starting to hurt a lot more and my legs were really wanting to quit. I knew that if I was really going to run an entire marathon though that I would at least have to be able to run a measly 5 miles. So I kept talking and encouraging myself to just keep going, just keep pushing and I am so glad and proud that I made it through the entire 5 miles and WITHOUT MUSIC!!! Now I have even more confidence that I will be able to run 8 miles on Sunday.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Yesterday I went on my first run in my training to run the LA Marathon. Because I play both basketball and softball, I am already in pretty good shape, so I decided to start out with a 5 mile-run. I am proud to say that I completed the run without too much difficulty and did so at a pretty decent pace. Today is a resting day and my entire body aches. My legs are sore and feet have blisters. I had to run in my nike street shoes because I don't have any money to buy running shoes, and they gave me so blisters on my feet. Tomorrow I will run another 5 miles and then on Sunday I plan to run 8. I have plenty of time to train for the marathon and I am certain that I will accomplish my goal. I am very excited about it now.

Hello,My name is Maayan Gordon and I am a college freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. This past year, an amazing boy named Ezra Sherman who I knew from my guide dog puppy group (Guide Puppies of Seattle) passed away very shortly after being diagnosed with Leukemia. I was deeply saddened by such a great loss and I felt the grief of our entire community at his passing. I remember his memorial service as being one of the most difficult days of my life as I witnessed the intense pain of hundreds of people in our community whose lives Ezra had touched. For a long time, this grief made me feel helpless and depressed. But recently, I met and became friends with someone who had Leukemia for 4 years and against the odds, beat it. A stronger person I have never met, and I am very proud to be a friend and teammate of Tasha Serna-Gallegos. She has helped inspire me to run the LA Marathon to raise money for cancer research. One of the things that I hate most in life is running. It is painful, long, and tedious, but what Tasha did by beating cancer makes running a marathon seem like eating my favorite dessert.